Knoppix 6.4.3 installed to hdd in virtual box. Random seg faults after each install.

Greetings,

Firstly this problem is reproducible by me so far on two different sets of hardware.
I am running knoppix 6.4.3 on my computer.

• I create a 17 GB virtual box dynamic expanding harddrive in virtual box.
• Mount knoppix 6.4.3 image with virutal box.

• from within the guest: I run knoppix hdd installer. and use full drive. at this point in time I get some error about not being able to do this. Then I use gparted and do it manually and it allows me to install. Install goes perfect apart from that.

After knoppix 6.4.3 is installed to virutal box hdd and i reboot.
I get the following symptoms.
there is no folders on desktop. (this has happend each time)
random applications won't run. they just segfault.
first install it was mkdir. second install it was networkmanager.
third install on other hardware it was iceweasle
The apps will segfault untill i replace them manually. That will fix them.

I have done a md5 checksum to check my dvd iso and it matches.
I also used the same dvd iso for my initial host operating system install which works perfectly. so it cannot be that the iso is corrupted.

btw, when i run in live mode in virtual box I find no problems.
I have also tried this on all different hardware with the same setup.

I have tried changing some cheat codes in grub and am willing to try more.
I suspect that knoppix installer does not write properly to the virutal box harddrive.

Cheers for now

Greeting vlakvark,

Zonking zorillas ! I really like your moniker.

Your conjecture that the Knoppix installer has trouble writing to the virtual box hardware certainly sounds plausible.

Can I confirm a few (obvious, I sorry) things:

- you are using Knoppix 6.4.3 as both host and guest OS
- both use 32-bit kernels (you're not trying to run a 64-bit guest on a 32-bit host)
- both use the Virtual Box version that comes with Knoppix (you haven't installed the latest and greatest off the web)
- you are using the guest extensions in the guest OS
- you haven't recompiled these

- when you say HDD install you mean that and are not confusing that with USB flash install
- you have installed to a real HDD and not to a USB stick (unbranded USB sticks can be a real menace)

- what file system does the guest OS think it on the disk (ext3 I guess) ?
- what file system does the host OS think the virtual drive is on (I hope not ntfs) ?

- in VirtualBox is the virtual disk attached to an IDE controller or a SATA controller ?

- how much memory does the virtual machine have and how much does the host have and have you run the memory test on both ?

- could you explain what you mean by 'manually' replace broken application binaries ?

- boot your virtual machine from DVD and do a fsck on the virtual disk. Is it OK ?
- to md5sum on a few binaries / shared libraries on both the virtual disk and the DVD and see if they are the same.

Hi Forester,

Please forgive my late reply. I totally forgot about this thread ,next time I'll make sure to set the option that the forum emails me replies.

Good news, I solved my problem shortly afterwards. The only thing I did different was create a Static harddrive instead of a Dynamic one. I also may have changed the IDE controller to SATA but I am not sure which of my actions actually fixed the problem. No problems since then :-)

For completeness sake I will attempt to answer all of your questions in blue. In case someone in future has a similar problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forester

Greeting vlakvark,

Zonking zorillas ! I really like your moniker.
Dankie, context http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlakvark

Your conjecture that the Knoppix installer has trouble writing to the virtual box hardware certainly sounds plausible.

Can I confirm a few (obvious, I sorry) things:

- you are using Knoppix 6.4.3 as both host and guest OS Yes
- both use 32-bit kernels<Yes (you're not trying to run a 64-bit guest on a 32-bit host)<No
- both use the Virtual Box version that comes with Knoppix. Yes (you haven't installed the latest and greatest off the web)<No
- you are using the guest extensions in the guest OS Yes
- you haven't recompiled these No

- when you say HDD install you mean that and are not confusing that with USB flash install. No confusion, I am certain I used HDD install script and not the usb flash install.

- you have installed to a real HDD and not to a USB stick (unbranded USB sticks can be a real menace) The VDI was created on an internal IDE harddrive on my laptop and then later tried again on a desktop with a internal SATA harddrive.

- what file system does the guest OS think it on the disk (ext3 I guess) ? KNOPPIX only ever allows me to install REISERFS, I have no idea how to change that, I have tried but failed.

- what file system does the host OS think the virtual drive is on (I hope not ntfs) ? REISERFS

- in VirtualBox is the virtual disk attached to an IDE controller or a SATA controller ? Interesting. The default install is IDE for a guest os. But my now working one I had at some stage removed the IDE controller and added a SATA controller. This could also possibly have solved my problem.

- how much memory does the virtual machine have and how much does the host have and have you run the memory test on both ? My laptop I tested on has 1200MB ram I gave 600MB to the guest. The other desktop I tested on had 2Gig ram with 512 for the guest.

- could you explain what you mean by 'manually' replace broken application binaries ?
As I have not been successful at mounting a vbfs share.(still don't know how) I would start a
sshd service on the guest and use gftp to copy working files from my host install to into the guest host.

- boot your virtual machine from DVD and do a fsck on the virtual disk. Is it OK ? Sorry, I have not tried this. But will if I ever encounter this problem again.
- to md5sum on a few binaries / shared libraries on both the virtual disk and the DVD and see if they are the same.

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Sorry, I have not tried this. But will if I ever encounter this problem again.